Having provided details earlier, Sapphire today officialy announced its new Radeon HD 6950 FleX Edition graphics card. Featuring completely custom and non-reference PCB and cooler, the new HD 6950 is a part of Sapphire FleX lineup that makes using Eyefinity simple.

As far as specs go, the new card features 1408 Stream processors and works at 800MHz for the GPU and 5000MHz for 2GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 256-bit memory interface. The backplate is filled with two DVI ports, two mini DisplayPort and one HDMI output. The story behind the FleX Edition is quite simple as it allows your to connect up to three monitors without going for those expensive active adapters or DisplayPort monitors. You can hook up two to available DVI ports where the third one can be connected to an HDMI port via the bundled adapter.

We couldn't say with certainty last week, but we can now confirm that Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 FleX Edition does indeed come with a dual BIOS switch, so there is at least a chance that you can unlock it. The card is yet to hit retail and the price remains a mystery, for now at least.

It seems like Radeon HD 6950 1GB is looking at price drops ahead as Hightech Information System Limited, also known as the HIS, slashed pricing of its HD 6950 Fan 1GB card to €189,90.

Of course, we are talking here about the reference Cayman Pro card with 1408 shaders that comes clocked at 800MHz for the GPU and 5000MHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Other partners are still selling their own cards at around €200 but we are sure that the we'll see price drops from them as well. The cheapest AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB still goes for around €220.

Newegg.com still sells the 1GB HD 6950 at around US $244,99. You can find the HIS HD 6950 1GB listings here.

We managed to score some information and pictures of Sapphire's yet to be announced HD 6950 FleX Edition card. As you probably already know, Sapphire has been keenly promoting its FleX cards that have "out of the box" support for AMD's Eyefinity.

Although we still don't know if this one will end up at HD 6950 reference clocks or will it be overclocked, we can tell you that this one is as non-reference as it can be. In addition to Sapphire's trademark blue PCB, the new HD 6950 FleX will feature a dual-slot custom cooler with a center placed fan. The backplate features two DVI (one is Single-Link), two mini DisplayPort and one HDMI output.

The story behind the FleX is that you can connect three DVI monitors without buying those fancy DisplayPort monitors or active adapters as two can be connected to the DVI ports and the third goes via supplied HDMI to DVI adapter. The card needs one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI-Express power connector but we are not sure if Sapphire decided to ditch the "magic" BIOS switch button due to the fact that we are looking at a non-reference PCB.

The card should launch pretty soon and we'll certainly have more details, but until then, you can enjoy those pictures below.

Netherlands based company, Club3D, has rolled out yet another graphics card that will be a part of its Radeon HD 6900 series, the Radeon HD 6950 1GB GDDR5.

Featuring the Cayman Pro GPU, the new HD 6950 has stock clocks but uses a custom dual slot, dual fan cooler. As noted, the card works at stock 800MHz for the GPU and 5000MHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 256-bit memory interface. It comes with standard two DVI, HDMI and two mini Displayport outputs.

The cooler is the same one that we've seen on Powercolor's cards and features two heatpipes and two fans in order to keep the temperatures down without making a lot of noise.

The card should be available shortly as it already listed in Europe with a lowest price set at €228,74. You can find it listed here.

It looks like all of the AMD HD 6950 cards appear to be ready for unlocking, at least for now. According to Wizzard from Techpowerup, it is a matter of a simple BIOS flash and your HD 6950 can easily turn to an HD 6970. AMD even made the process a bit easier as AMD included the dual-BIOS feature on its HD 6900 series cards and if something goes wrong you can always go for the recovery/factory protected BIOS.

It looks like AMD didn't use the fuse locking on its HD 6950 cards and it is a simple BIOS update that makes the card switch from its 1408 to 1536 shaders and even reach HD 6970 clocks. For now, the unlock is possible on all HD 6950 cards and not just a handful of review samples.

Nice news for all those who snatched the HD 6950 and it looks like these will be selling quite nicely in next few days. You can find more details here.

We tend to check the market a day or two after any product launch and we can tell you that Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 cards are still widely available. We don't like paper launches and this certainly was not one of them.

Its been some 30 hours since AMD officialy let people post their reviews and start selling Cayman cards. So far it looks that the cards are selling well and that AMD has enough of them.

The EU market has enough cards and you can find many of them listed and available here.

Newegg in the US still has them and the prices we mentioned yesterday havent really changed. You can check them here.

In the UK we checked again and you can see that some cards sold at eBuyer but they are still available. You have all the necessary links here.

As it is the case with almost every AMD AIB partner, Asus has also rolled out its own Cayman based HD 6950 and HD 6970 cards. The interesting fact is that Asus is the only partner that has decided to go for a factory overclock, at least for now.

Both the HD 6950 and the HD 6970 are overclocked by 10MHz, which is probably something that you can do by yourself, but bear in mind that Asus does this but keeps your warranty. This means that the HD 6970 ended up clocked at 890MHz for the GPU while the HD 6950 works at 810MHz for the GPU.

Unfortunately, the factory overclock isn't extended to the memory so you are looking at cards that have 2GB of memory clocked at 5.5Gbps for the HD 6970 and 5.0Gbps for the HD 6950. Both cards also feature Asus' Voltage Tweak feature and full aluminum fan shroud/cover that should help in heat dissipation.

AMD has officially launched its own Cayman based HD 6900 series graphics cards featureing enhanced second generation architecture, DirectX 11 support, new image quality features and AMD's Eyefinity multi-display support. AMD's official press release is of course full of praise but the actual launch leaves a bitter taste since AMD didn't manage to outrun the GTX 580 in the king of the single-GPU king-of-the-hill race.

Don't get us wrong as the HD 6970 and HD 6950 are rather good cards considering the price/performance ratio. AMD also took time to officially explain, once again, that the new architecture (the VLIW4 design) is the key in gaining the 10 percent improvement in performance/mm2. The Cayman is also first GPU that has AMD's PowerTune technology that automatically adjusts GPU power draw by controlling clock speeds, and despite the fact that it does saw a couple of Watts, it also keeps the GPU inside the predetermined TDP.

The suggested price tag was the most surprising information concerning the Cayman launch and at US $369.99 for the HD 6970 and US $299.99 for the HD 6950, AMD pulled the Cayman down into a completely different battle, the one for the enthusiast market segment. The HD 6950 on the other hand doesn't have a competitor yet, but it is rather a card that has to deal with the HD 5870, at least until this one "mysteriously dissapears" from the market.

Nvidia's GTX 570 is breathing heavily down the HD 6970's neck and we are sure that we'll see a price adjustment coming from Nvidia pretty soon. Although the reviews are mixed, most reviewers agree on the same thing, AMD's Cayman is a decent card considering price/performance ratio, but we just can't shake off the previous battle for the fastest single card expectations. Bitter or not, AMD's Cayman cards are here to stay and at least the availability looks decent.

You can find our review here, while some of the reviews from other sites can be found below.

We just got an update of Radeon HD 6900 series pricing. The Radeon HD 6970 will sell in Europe as of 5 AM Wednesday for €275+VAT, while Radeon HD 6950 will sell for just €225+VAT euro.

The UK suggested retail price is £225 incl VAT for Radeon HD 6950 and £279 incl VAT for Radeon HD 6970. UK chaps will get the cards at 6.00 AM due the time zone differences. California and the rest of Pacific time zone will get the card on December 14th at 9.00 PM, while east coast New York gets it December 15th at 00.00 AM.

This is a surprising move as the prices are much lower than anyone had expected. For comparison, the Geforce GTX 570 sells for at least 340 euro, while the cheapest Geforce GTX 580 on the EU market sells for 480 euro, and in most cases for well over €500.

We heard that €360 for 6970 and €320 for 6950 was the plan before, but obviously it got canned. One can only hope that AMD can make money with such low prices, but as end users we should simply be thrilled for getting great graphics cards at such low prices.

The prices are excellent and even if the cards ends up somewhat slower than the GTX 580 and GTX 570, they will definitely be very attractive due to competitive pricing.

If our info is correct, AMD has no competition for the HD 6950, more precisely - Nvidia has no card in the market segment AMD is aiming at.

According to what we have heard from the industry sources, AMD will aim its top Cayman, the HD 6970, at Nvidia's GTX 570, and according to AMD, HD 6970 should end up to be a faster card. On the other hand, the HD 6950 story is completely different as according to AMD, the HD 6950 is in a "class of its own", and simply has no competition.

The story is quite simple, there is quite a big gap between Nvidia's GTX 460 and GTX 570 and AMD is quite happy with the way that AMD HD 6800 series competes in this particular performance segment. For example, the average GTX 460 with 1GB of memory retails at around €150 to €160 in Europe while the average GTX 570 retails at around €350 (somewhere less somewhere more, depending on the region).

Bear in mind that the HD 6950 has 2GB of GDDR5 memory, and should end up significantly faster than the GTX 460. The price of both Caymans isn't carved in stone of course and is something that AMD can change quite easily. Having said that, the HD 6950 should probably end up somewhere between €250 and €300 at least according to the market placement.